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The Cub Report – Controlling ALL The Things!

So, you probably think all we’ve been doing this week is running the Fall of Theramore.

Honestly, the scenario was exactly what a scenario should be – a cute little thing to do together for fun, no big deal. Oh look, a cool Tabard and some, er, fireworks.

Or, as Alex said at the time, “Did they just give us fireworks to celebrate Theramore getting destroyed?”

Well put.

No, my friends, oh no. Fall of Theramore was a good topic of conversation for a day, but that is small potatoes, of no consequence before the fires of a boy’s imagination.

Since the 5.0.4 patch, and the Talent/Skill revamp, Alex has been going through his spellbook, looking at his skills and reading descriptions.

It was while doing this that he came across a cool looking icon with a skull on a black background.

The name of the ability was “Control Undead”.

All of you Death Knight players out there, you know what happened next.

He didn’t say anything to me, he just took it upon himself to fly up to Icecrown and experiment.

I was doing a little Archaeology, and happened to glance over at his screen.

“Son”, I asked, “Where did you get an undead puppy for a pet?”

Well, it turns out he’s been controlling, well, everything. Everywhere.

So, I asked him to take me on a guided tour of all of his favorite undead to tame and control. Just, go ahead and show me your favorites.

What follows is your Death Knight Control Undead Travelogue.

Enjoy.

It Begins.

The Pustulant Horror

Alex started off by bringing me to one of the closest undead to Dalaran to tame, the Pustulant Horror. It was here he instructed me on the basics. They replaced your existing pet while you controlled them, they would stay controlled for up to five minutes, if you controlled something else they would either vanish or attack you, and if you tried to take the really big ones off walls carelessly they would bug out in midair instead of following you anywhere… like Dalaran.

Yes, he tried.

Malefic Necromancers – Gotta Catch ‘Em All

It turns out, there are three colors of malefic Necromancers wandering the Icecrown valleys. Yes, Alex was very careful to capture one of every color for me to take a picture of. Yes, this is important.

Risen Alliance Soldier

The Risen Alliance Soldier that Alex controlled is clearly a Paladin of some sort… awesome armor, very badass. As you can see, this captured a tense moment, as the Risen Alliance Soldier was about to be ganked from behind. Oh no! What will happen! Will our hero survive? Alex couldn’t just control one of the normal ones, oh no, he went for the gold.

Hulking Abomination

The Hulking Abomination was interesting. Alex pointed out that, if you wait, he grabs his stomach in both hands and kinda jiggles it. I couldn’t help noticing that the third arm, the one sticking out of his shoulder and holding the hook? Yeah, he periodically uses it to scratch his own back, right in that hard to reach spot.

That BASTARD.

Frostbrood Skytalon

Up to that point, all was about what you’d expect. Ho hum, Death knight sees random undead, controls undead. Then, he flew through a pack of Skytalons intentionally, brought one down and tamed it. It followed him around as he flew on his ICC 25 mount, and damn if that didn’t look cool.

Fallen Spiderlord

Bugs… why’d it have to be bugs. That there is the worlds largest undead cockroach… and my son had to tame it and make it his pet. I’m so proud.

Frostbrood Matriarch

Then he went for a target, and all I could say was, no freaking way.

Yes, yes he did. He tamed a Frostbrood Matriarch to be his ‘pet’. That shot doesn’t really do justice to the concept…

So by way of comparison, I had Alex get on his mount, and circled him. He’s that teeny circled Death Knight down there, completely hidden in that giant honking shadow. That thing is HUGE.

Bone Sentinel

Oh, I’m sorry, did I say the Frostbrood was huge? Sorry, my mistake. Thanks for clearing that up by showing me what REALLY huge is like.

That’s right. If you look closely, Alex comes up to the top of his BOOT. Just, WTF, and Blizzard, please make this a permanent pet when Control Undead is Glyphed. Or make Unholy be a “tame undead and have a stable like Hunters” spec. Unholy argleblargle. They’ll never do it, how could you fit that thing through a dungeon door? But god, couldn’t you just SEE Arathi Basin with a few of those giving away your position?

Coprous The Defiled – The Saga

This will be a series of shots. See, Alex wanted to show me this cool trick Coprous does.

He drops his left arm… and, well, you can’t be having with that, now can you?

A Boy and His Dog

As he ran up to this one to tame him, Alex called out, “Here boy! Come on! Who’s a good boy, huh? Who’s a good boy! Oh yes you are!” We may just need to get him a puppy. Our three cats might not like that, though.

The best moment, he really did save for last.

Acherus Deathcharger

I almost missed it at first.

He ran up to one of the mounted Death Knights outside the gate, and he controlled… the mount.

RIGHT OUT FROM UNDER THE KNIGHT.

If you look up there, you can see the pitiful broken body of the Death Knight there in the corner. All the dude was doing was cruising along, thinking wormy thoughts, next thing he knows his OWN MOUNT throws him and goes running off to a new master.

That’s cold, man. That’s really cold.

What is it about Arthas, that everything he raises has to be… bigger?

He seems to have a real thing about size. I don’t like to mention it, but he also seemed to be really obsessed with the… performance of his minions.

Let’s choose not to speculate on why he may have turned to evil after his tryst with Jaina, shall we?

I hope you have enjoyed this completely out of character visual journey through the adventures of a Cub and his Control Undead games. You can be sure that, from now on, every undead we see will be a lab rat for his experiments.

Look at it this way. We finally found something to experiment on that people care less about than lawyers. Do you see PETA coming up to Icecrown to complain?

The real fun comes INSIDE ICC! Yes, you can control undead many of the mobs in there…if you pull a Valkyr and it spawns a replica of your friend? Control Undead, now you have TWO friends! /cackle. It’s even shockingly useful. Many of the mobs actually do great damage and one certain one is an enormous help. Before Valithria are a few friendly NPC’s who die as you fight Sylvana the ‘mini-boss’ to open the gate. Now the dps ones sure, they have 2 million hp and do some impressive damage. But the real prize since this is a healing fight is Captain Arnath, the priest. I’ve seen it done now around 10 times and this mob has a 370k Flash Heal…yes, the top healing done on Valithria recently has been a DK’s pet, tonight’s run the DK did almost double the heals of the next closest nd the fight was over before the first portals ever spawned, boom free achievements!

Anmazingly nifty. How powerful are the pets? Are they cosmetic (“My ghoul looks like a hundred foot tall skeleton but still hits like a six foot sack of slime”) or do they actually do damage proportional to their originals?

I LOVE how he discovers things all on his own! I didn’t know that death knights could even do this! And then for him to run around and tame all those guys–such a smart little guy! He really enjoys this game, and I really enjoy reading about it. So many people are rush rush hurry hurry gear gear. Thanks for this post.

I’ve been leveling a DK in the pre-expansion lull, and I think Control Undead is totally underrated! The best I’ve found are the Spell Flingers in Ahn’Kahet. The Shadow Blast ability is based on target health, and it works on bosses. 6 seconds of players softening up the boss, then WHAM! Shadow Blast and it’s dead!